You Get Fired Because They Don’t Like You

“You get hired because they like you, and fired because they don’t.” Have you heard that before? You can read all the books about personnel practices till the cows come home, but the truth is that likeable people probably trump difficult folks most of the time.
Think about it. Between two average employees, all things being equal, the annoying person will get fired first.
And it’s not hard to end up being labeled as “an annoying person.” For example, an overly spontaneous, lighthearted Orange accountant can be driving the fastidious Gold folk nuts. The Gold accountants can be so focused on keeping their Excel sheets perfect that they see Orange flippancy and breeziness as a threat to order in the office – never mind that the Orange work output itself may be measurably perfect.
So what to do? Long before we would face something as drastic as a layoff, we all might want to monitor how we are being perceived by others. Being an appealing person pays off in raises, opportunities, and even the best parties, wouldn’t you say? To get back to the example above of the overly-lighthearted Orange accountant, he can probably learn to separate office behavior from off-the-clock behavior. He needs to be himself, of course, but also find out what behaviors get the best results for himself and for the team. Ironically Golds and Oranges speak similar “concrete” languages, but Golds definitely want to hear the language that best adheres to social norms. Sometimes a “behavior adjustment” is only a matter of small adjustments and can be more comfortable than expected. Besides, every Orange person soon knows who his allies are in the workplace and who he can let his hair down with – both on and off the clock, right?
So the lesson here is that just a little behavior monitoring every day can pretty much guarantee you a warm spot in the hearts of hirers and firers when times get tough.